Sarah Pettit, 36, a Founder of Out Magazine

By JULIE V. IOVINE

Published: January 23, 2003

Sarah Pettit, a founding editor and former editor in chief of Out magazine, one of the first gay and lesbian publications with mainstream status, died yesterday at Columbia-Presbyterian Center of New York Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan. She was 36. The cause was non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, her family said.

While attending Yale, where she received a bachelor of arts degree in 1988, she organized gay and lesbian cultural and political events. She moved to New York, and in 1989 became an editor of OutWeek, an alternative paper eager to bring a gay subculture to the surface.

In 1992, she joined Michael Goff in creating Out magazine, where she extended the magazine's cultural and political focus, and attracted a range of advertisers, including Calvin Klein and General Motors, that had not previously appeared in gay publications.

She became editor in chief in 1997 as Out magazine became one of the country's most influential gay and lesbian magazines. She was dismissed at the end of the year on the basis that the magazine wanted to change editorial focus. She sued, asserting sex discrimination and breach of contract. The case was settled out of court.

At her death, she was the senior editor of the Arts and Entertainment section at Newsweek magazine.

Ms. Pettit was born on Aug. 6, 1966, in Amsterdam, where her father, Frederick Pettit, was a banker. She spent her childhood in Paris; London; Bad Homburg, Germany; and Chappaqua, N.Y.

Besides her father, of Hillsborough, Calif., Ms. Pettit is survived by her mother, Jane Pettit of Washington, and two brothers, Benjamin Pettit of Washington and Baer Pettit of London.